Reel-View Ratings: The Bigger The Beard, The Better The Movie
EDDIE THE EAGLE
To satirize the feel-good sports genre requires a bit more delicacy than one would expect. The cloying, redundant Eddie the Eagle manages to dumb down the formula with a void of humor. The story follows the British folk hero of the 1988 Winter Olympics, Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards, a mediocre athlete who utilized a loophole to compete in the ski jump category. The real-life Edwards was a character, to be sure, but this film dumbs him down, depicting him as a goofball manchild with little redeeming nuance except as “heroic failure.” What the film does do right is in its portrayal of the more harrowing parts of ski jumping (a little-loved Olympic sport) and its choice of Hugh Jackman as Edwards’ irascible trainer.
Opens Feb. 26 in wide release
SILENT HEART
A Danish family comes together for one final holiday before matriarch Esther, suffering from ALS, ends her own life. The film isn’t interested, per say, in questions of whether euthanasia is wrong — it’s more focused on what impact that self-chosen death has on her family. A whole host of characters have opinions (most notably her two daughters, Heidi and Sanne) and end up revealing more about themselves than they care to admit (though some folks are overshadowed by others and are little more than window dressing in a crowded room). Still, it’s a thoughtful, nuanced portrait of the ripples of death on the bereaved. A twist ending is strange but not entirely inappropriate.
Plays at 1,4:15 and 7:30 p.m. Feb. 29 at the Movie Museum
TRIPLE 9
Everything about this movie should be good. A group of dirty cops and ex-military (played by the likes of Chiwetel Ejiofor, Anthony Mackie, Norman Reedus and Aaron Paul) work for a mob madam (Kate Winslet, enjoying herself) and must pull off a major heist that requires the death of a police officer (Casey Affleck). Great cast, promising premise — only it’s all a muddled mess. The storyline meanders into incoherency, and the actors just don’t have enough to work with, so the characters are mostly hollow archetypes fueled by sheer charisma. The action is tight, taut and intense but it needs a worthy backdrop or else it is just sound and fury — signifying nothing.
Opens Feb. 26 in wide release
